Parish Council News

Village Field: The Parish Council are drawing up a maintenance plan for the field which will take on board the recommendations from the ecology and archaeology surveys carried out to support the change of use application. We have applied for grant funding to help with the plans for the field and hope to hear the outcome of these applications in February. We are looking to progress with our plans for the field following the consultation held last year and we will discuss further at our next meeting.
Planning: The latest application to develop the Service Station was approved by Stratford District Council in November, as there were now no planning reasons to object. Euro Garages are continuing with their appeal against the previously refused application. SDC are currently revising their core planning strategy. This includes how residents and the environment should benefit from development. We are also working with SDC planning over several enforcement issues, who have apologised for their lack of action with developers and sub-contractors at Church Street, a situation that will be rectified in due course.
Green Waste Charging: SDC have now agreed plans to charge for green waste collection. It was noted that this is a discretionary service and that SDC are under pressure to balance their budget; if the service is to be continued SDC agreed the charge which is similar to other local district councils.
Community: Our website is being updated to ensure that parish council information is more transparent. We will co-ordinate our update with other community groups. Residents on Warwick Road have formally thanked Councillor Hill for her work when travellers recently arrived. The parish council are looking into what further deterrents can be introduced. Councillor Claxton will look at what can be done to improve the path between Edgehill and St Marks. Councillor Claxton is also working to bring the phone box into use as a community asset for a book and information exchange.
Neighbourhood Plan: SDC have confirmed the parish boundaries for our Neighbourhood Plan and we have appointed planning consultants (Kirkwells) to support the production of our plan and grant application.
Traffic Calming: Warwickshire County Council have now installed the village gates and as we are aware there are some issues with the style and location we are liaising with County Highways.
Budget: We will agree our budget for 2020/21 at our next meeting.
Next Meeting: Tuesday 4th February at 7.30pm.

Compton Verney

The gallery re-opens on Saturday 14 March, with two new exhibitions.
Cranach: Artist and Innovator
This show features some of his most beguiling paintings and illustrations on loan from the National Gallery, the British Museum and Waddesdon Manor. There will also be modern and contemporary works inspired by Cranach, by artists including Pablo Picasso, Raqib Shaw, Claire Partington and Michael Landy, which demonstrate his significant and enduring cultural influence.
Fabric: Touch and Identity
Experience how fabric conceals, reveals and seduces through the lenses of art, design, fashion, film and dance. See works by Vivenne Westwood, Dorothea Tanning, Raisa Kabir, and Cathy de Monchaux; as well as new commissions including Fanfair, an immersive installation by Reiko Sudo.

Gaydon Village Store

There are a number of ways that you can support the village shop and ensure that it continues to serve our community.
You could commit to buying a few certain items every week, rather than get them at the supermarket: for instance, local free-range eggs, fresh bread or particular tinned items.
You might consider becoming one of our volunteers. You could work alongside an experienced member of the team. It's a great way to meet people.
You could join our membership scheme at £12 a year. We have at least three draws a year, some of our previous prizes having been: membership of Compton Verney for a year; a voucher towards a meal at The Malt Shovel; a beauty treatment from Sharon at Head-to-Toe; and tea at The Herb Centre. Membership forms are available at
the shop. We look forward to serving you throughout 2020! From everyone at your village shop.

Letter from Down Under

We are delighted to hear again from our Australian correspondent, Mrs Judith Neddermann of Queensland, who used to live in Gaydon and now keeps in touch via the Magazine. She reports that she has reached the venerable age of ninety-three and is in good spirits and possession of all her faculties. She is thankful that there have been no forest fires in Chapel Hill where she lives. I'm sure we all sympathise with her compatriots who have suffered in those terrible recent events.

Pub Quiz in aid of the Church

The Malt Shovel has kindly offered to run its March quiz night to raise money for St Giles's Church. The quiz will be on Wednesday 11th and we hope to have plenty of teams taking part.

Relocation of Little Thatch Surgery, Kineton

Little Thatch surgery in Kineton is relocating to next door to the Kineton Pharmacy where all dispensing will be done. Appointments will be booked via the main surgery at Hastings House, Wellesbourne on 01789 840245. Kineton Pharmacy is open 9am-6.30pm Monday to Friday, and 9am-1pm on Saturdays on 01926 641902.

Thanks

Thanks to Alastair McHotchkiss and his team of Scotch chefs for a fine Burns Night Dinner. Excellent food, company and entertainment!

The Vicar writes:

I felt confident in my rôle as a hospital Chaplain until one day I was asked to visit a Vicar admitted after a heart attack. I felt really daunted at the thought of pastoring a pastor, until he told me that on his first night in hospital he’d been afraid to go to sleep because he didn’t think he’d wake up! I suddenly realised that he didn’t need the polished prayers of a professional. He was struggling with his mortality and his future and just needed someone to to listen, offer a prayer and most of all, to be there with him.
We all have insecurities, times when we feel unworthy.
Whether Christian or not, there are times in our lives when we feel called to do things - to use our God-given gifts. God has called us to be his hands on earth, to do his work, to be his people. He calls some to preach, others to sing in the choir; some to fund-raise for charity and others to serve tea and coffee; some to campaign for justice, others to care for the environment by reducing their use of plastics etc. The one constant is to be faithful to our calling, whether it be great or small, whether we like it or not, whether we feel worthy or not.
Terrible things are happening around the world! Politicians can’t get it together! Everything seems to be unravelling! But the Bible acknowledges that life is seldom easy. When little David acted in faith and followed his calling, he slayed the giant Goliath. When Jesus was faithful, he died on a cross - but God raised him from the dead three days later. We all have our part to play: we need to be faithful to our calling.
So let’s listen for our calling! Let’s not be afraid if God calls us to do something great, or ashamed if he calls us to do something small. Let’s be faithful and prepare ourselves to see the heavens open and to hear God’s voice say, 'Well done!'. Reverend Nicki Chatterton

Allotment News February

The afternoons are stretching out now as the new year grows and the plots will need - in addition to armchair planning - more ‘hands-on’ attention. Not surprisingly, handling compost can combine feelings of disgust and delight as we focus on its dual nature of rot and renewal, but it is pivotal to soil health and organic crops. Consequently, our attention turns to those sources of well-rotted manure that many gardeners know of but - very often - will zealously keep secret as would gold prospectors in 1890’s Klondike as they unearth the precious lode! Stables are reconnoitred and opinions are relayed back and judgements made about the relative qualities of the horses’ discarded offerings. Decisions are taken on what source is worth the effort of heavy (and aromatic…) digging and transporting the magic muck to the plots.
Now after last year’s gruelling work of establishing the plots has been mainly completed, we should be able to regard them in more creative ways. Paul and Catherine led the way last year with some ingenious strategies to help productive cropping and Bernard and Debbie’s fruit cage will be even more of a success now it’s fully established. Planting perennial vegetables is an idea we are contemplating, but the balance between cost and cropping and how they compare with annual vegetable plants will have to be considered.

Words and Things

A rose by any other name would still
be a many-petalled vivid bloom
though it would dare us not to sense
the original delight of word and thing
the liquid 'R' the open 'O' the sensual 'S' the elided 'E'
matching pairs which please and sing.
But we should consider it strange
the heat that’s generated
when the same
is either ‘crisis’ or it’s ‘change’
And some things will ripen and rot
even if their words exit or not… T.H.

Mobile Library

The Library will visit the Telephone Box at Gaydon from 1.35-2.05pm on Monday 17 February.

Coffee Morning

Our monthly coffee mornings start again on Saturday 8 February at 11am in the Village Hall. There is a bring and buy stall, a book stall and a raffle; coffee and biscuits 50p. Money raised is in aid of St Giles' Church. Please come along - everyone is welcome!

Pop-up Valentines Coffee Morning

Tuesday 11 February at 11am-12.30pm in Gaydon Village Hall Coffee and Cakes

Millennium Group Event the First in 2020

The next event we are planning is Community Souper Saturday on the 22nd February 12-2pm in the Village Hall. There will be six homemade soups available covering most preferences, meat eaters, vegetarians and vegans, so please join us and meet up with other villagers for a winter catch-up. The cost for soup, bread and topping will be £2.50 for adults, children half price. Old-fashioned board games will be put out for entertainment.
A list will go up in the village shop to sign, so that we have some idea of numbers, but pay at the door on the 22nd.
We hope you enjoyed the Christmas tree on the village green, paid for from your contributions at past events. We will try to do this every year with better lights now we know they were safe.
Thanks to Andy Thomas and Chris Pickering for their help. The tree was supplied by Lyn Smith, on the Fosse Way, who gave us a generous discount. Debbie Price

Dog Watch

Once again, it appears that a minority of dog-owners are allowing their pets to foul the village pavements and entrances to residents' properties. This is a filthy practice and incurs a £75 on-the-spot Fixed Penalty Notice if they are caught, with a potential £1000 fine. Please clear up after your dog and show consideration for other villagers!

The Gaydon Book Exchange

By the time you read this the Gaydon book exchange will be up and running, located in the Phone box in Church road. Initial donations can be left on the shelves. In time, I will be posting maps and information on the board to one side of the shelves. To avoid the phone box becoming a book dump there need to be some rules:
Please be sensible and reasonable. Do not put your entire excess library in the phone box.
If the phone box becomes untidy, any books not on the shelves will be thrown away.
Books should be of popular interest. Therefore books should be either Fiction or Biography. No technical books or study guides etc.
No duplicates. If there is a copy of a book on the shelf already, please don’t leave another copy.
It would be good if books were ordered alphabetically by author (or subject if a biography).
Help yourself to books, and please leave the library tidy. Lastly and most importantly please enjoy this village asset. Adrian Claxton (Cllr)

Neighbourhood Watch

Once again we have been visited by a group of travellers who occupied the Old Warwick Road.
Cllr Corinne Hill took immediate action and co-ordinated teams from the County Council, District Council and the Police. This resulted in very effective and quick action over a period of 4 days. A formal notice was quickly on the encampment and the case was brought before the court in a matter of days.
Police response was excellent (especially Sgt Ryan, PC Morgan and PCSO Bailey) and they visited the encampment a number of times as did Council Officers. Police patrols were stepped up until the travellers had left. A Police officer was also placed on duty at the petrol station. The roadway, pavements and residents' drives were left in a terrible condition and the clean-up costs must have been substantial.
The Police are powerless to evict travellers without a Court Order. Based on the three previous encampments, Gaydon is probably entitled to apply for a permanent or indefinite Court Injunction which will allow the Police to evict travellers immediately when they return.

Nature Notes

The New year has begun with exceptionally mild weather although a rather damp spell with overcast cloud cover has been a feature of most early days. The recent building work has resulted in an invasion of rats, whose primary target has been the bulbs in containers and front gardens with serious damage inflicted. Today one of my hens was killed - unusual, but rats are capable of this biting behind the head like a ferret. I started using both covered poison hoppers and break back traps carefully positioned so as not to harm other wildlife...unpleasant, but necessary. I am obviously not alone with this problem - the local supermarkets have shelves of Mouse/rat traps and poisons. In fact, I am amazed at the variety now available; once it was just the wooden ‘Little Nipper’ and the larger rat version. I console myself by knowing these rats are not a native species and the fewer of them around, the better for nesting birds. My cats have caught two smaller ones and I fear that Compost heaps may assist them too.*
It’s still rather dark in the early mornings with some spectacular red-tinted clouds. This week I set out around 7am and along the Fosse Way and soon I spotted the spectral white shape of a Barn Owl hunting along the verges; and a bonus, nearby, was a herd of Roe deer grazing the hedge line! Two more ghostly Barn owls appeared further towards Ettington. These birds too will be preying on the large numbers of rodents encouraged by this mild spell. There was a Red kite pecking a roadkill rabbit near Kineton on the way back.
Watery Lane in Chadshunt has always been a favourite place of mine to walk. You could guarantee to hear Skylarks and see Yellow Hammers and Linnets. One year attracted to the bubbling calls I even came close to a pair if newly-arrived Cuckoos in the large tree at the very end opposite Boundry Farm gates. You can walk the public footpath from Gaydon to Watery lane, quite a long way and muddy at present. There is much evidence of old railway lines that once ran along there. Watery lane is cut off now by the Army Camp but it once ran up to the now-demolished Battle Farm, Frog Hall and the Osiers [Willow beds]; another long-gone place 'Owlington Farm’ is now a large coppice and years ago I remember seeing a pair of Long eared owls perched on the edge.
I believe it’s still a place that attracts owls - sheer co-incidence of course - but there are many legendary spots on the Army camp, hence the many tales of ghosts from the Civil War. Birds to look out for this month are the winter migrants like the Pied Wagtails, large flocks of Goldfinches and Linnets.
Long-tailed tits will come to bird feeders and you may spot a Snipe or Woodcock on a flooded field. The nearby reserve of Baldock near Edgehill, with flocks of Lapwings is owned and run by Banbury Ornithological Society, well worth joining.
*I have since discovered that the culprit is a fox, a very accomplished athlete, who was seen jumping over the fences in St Giles Road. One flock of hens in a back garden there has been carried off leaving trails of feathers, so I’ve repaired my run and now lock up my flock very securely. The rats have gone, maybe falsely accused, but I'm relieved nevertheless at their departure! BP
A lovely white Araucana was killed a few days later by the fox in broad daylight in the Old Bakehouse garden while the gardener was in his shed. Ed.